Randall Museum in S.F. to close for major remodel

A rendering of an animal exhibit at the Randall Museum, which closes June 1 for a major remodel.

A rendering of an animal exhibit at the Randall Museum, which closes June 1 for a major remodel.

Photo: Randall Museum

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Animal keeper Dom Mosur (right) hold's a Swainson's hawk to show visitors Kevin Ling (left), 4 years old, and Sahib Hughes (middle), 6 years old today, at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015. less

Animal keeper Dom Mosur (right) hold's a Swainson's hawk to show visitors Kevin Ling (left), 4 years old, and Sahib Hughes (middle), 6 years old today, at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A rendering shows the planned Redwood Trail exhibit in the remodeled Randall Museum in Corona Heights Park in San Francisco.

A rendering shows the planned Redwood Trail exhibit in the remodeled Randall Museum in Corona Heights Park in San Francisco.

Photo: Randall Museum Friends

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Above: A rendering shows the proposed chaparral exhibit in the remodeled Randall Museum in Corona Heights Park in San Francisco.
Left: Skulls and bones stored in the museum will be displayed when the basement is opened for exhibitions for the first time. less

Above: A rendering shows the proposed chaparral exhibit in the remodeled Randall Museum in Corona Heights Park in San Francisco.
Left: Skulls and bones stored in the museum will be displayed when the basement ... more

Photo: Randall Museum Friends

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A rendering shows the new animal exhibit area at the Randall Museum, which closes June 1 for a major remodel.

A rendering shows the new animal exhibit area at the Randall Museum, which closes June 1 for a major remodel.

Photo: Randall Museum

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A rendering of the desert exhibit in the remodeled Randall Museum in Corona Heights Park.

A rendering of the desert exhibit in the remodeled Randall Museum in Corona Heights Park.

Photo: Randall Museum Friends

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Skulls and animals stored at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Skulls and animals stored at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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The hallway to the Buckley room, which will become the ceramics studio next year at the Randall Museum in San Francisco.

The hallway to the Buckley room, which will become the ceramics studio next year at the Randall Museum in San Francisco.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A view of the front entrance of the Randall Museum seen from behind the building at Corona Heights park in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

A view of the front entrance of the Randall Museum seen from behind the building at Corona Heights park in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A California quail at the Randall Museum in San Francisco is among the few left in the city.

A California quail at the Randall Museum in San Francisco is among the few left in the city.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Animal keeper Dom Mosur shows a Swainson’s hawk to visitors at the Randall Museum in San Francisco.

Animal keeper Dom Mosur shows a Swainson’s hawk to visitors at the Randall Museum in San Francisco.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Sydney Mah (right), 2 years old, stands near the owl at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Sydney Mah (right), 2 years old, stands near the owl at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Skulls and animals stored at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Skulls and animals stored at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Twins Maehr Hughes (blue shirt) and Sahib Hughes (gray jacket), who visited the Randall Museum on their sixth birthday, play with 4-year-old Kevin Ling (middle, next to pole).

Twins Maehr Hughes (blue shirt) and Sahib Hughes (gray jacket), who visited the Randall Museum on their sixth birthday, play with 4-year-old Kevin Ling (middle, next to pole).

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A view of the front entrance of the Randall Museum in San Francisco.

A view of the front entrance of the Randall Museum in San Francisco.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A view of the west side of the Randall Museum seen from behind the building in San Francisco.

A view of the west side of the Randall Museum seen from behind the building in San Francisco.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Urban legend says this is John McClaren's desk in the natural sciences lab at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Urban legend says this is John McClaren's desk in the natural sciences lab at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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The wood shop room at the Randall Museum is among the spaces to be remodeled. The museum offers many of the arts and crafts classes no longer available at public schools.

The wood shop room at the Randall Museum is among the spaces to be remodeled. The museum offers many of the arts and crafts classes no longer available at public schools.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A hallway leads to the art room at the Randall Museum.

A hallway leads to the art room at the Randall Museum.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A view of the Randall Museum from behind the building in San Francisco.

A view of the Randall Museum from behind the building in San Francisco.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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A band saw from the 1930s is displayed at the Randall Museum wood shop in San Francisco.

A band saw from the 1930s is displayed at the Randall Museum wood shop in San Francisco.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Shells stored at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Shells stored at the Randall Museum in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 7, 2015.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Randall Museum in S.F. to close for major remodel

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As a city kid in a condo, Jack Southard’s pet collection is confined to one lizard, two hissing cockroaches, three toads and a gecko. But when he comes to San Francisco’s Randall Museum, he can care for chickens and guinea pigs and rabbits and ducks, hawks on a high perch and a fat raccoon climbing in its cage like a monkey.

“I’ve always been an animal person,” says Jack, 13, an eighth-grader who makes his mom, Maria, pick him up at school and drive him to this hilltop sanctuary in Corona Heights, then return to pick him up two hours later, so “I get to work with animals.”

In all the years Jack has been coming to the Randall, nothing has changed, including the animals, who have been alive as long as he has. But on June 1, this free natural history museum, petting zoo and science fair run by the Recreation and Park Department will close for an $8 million remodel, kicked off by a $5.5 million state parks grant.

It is the first interior renovation in the Randall’s 65-year history, and when it reopens, in late 2016, the chickens and guinea pigs, rabbits and ducks that Jack feeds will no longer be in identical pens made of chicken wire. Instead, they will live in scenes that resemble their native grounds. It will be like the beloved dioramas at the California Academy of Sciences, but with living animals.

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“We’re keeping all the animals we have and reorganizing based on the habitat they came from,” says Executive Director Chris Boettcher. “It’s making it clear what this place is about.”

What the Randall is about is providing educational services for people like Jack Southard. He was the type of person whom Recreation Superintendent Josephine Randall had in mind when she spearheaded a $12 million bond to buy 16 hilltop acres off Market Street, north of the Castro, in 1947.

“Her vision was to create a place in the center of the city where kids could come experience a very unspoiled natural environment,” says Boettcher.

The Randall gets 100,000 visitors a year, including 15,000 schoolkids on field trips. This is how most people are introduced to the Randall. It is largely unknown and invisible because it cannot be seen from any street. It sits on a hilltop at Corona Heights Park and from the outside looks like any public school built in the 1950s.

It looks like a 1950s public school on the inside, too. All the arts and crafts that public schools have dropped are available here for after-school and summer programs. There is a wood shop, a ceramics studio and an arts studio. On Saturdays, a model railroad operates on the most elaborate track this side of Neil Young’s ranch.

But the main attraction is the live animal exhibit. The residents have it good, and it will get better when their group home is remodeled. There will be a chaparral area for what they say is the largest captive population of California quail in the city — three birds. There will be a riparian area for the raccoon, a desert area for the tortoise.

“The animals at the Randall live phenomenally long lives because they are so well taken care of,” says Boettcher. “We have animals living for 25 or 30 years, which is a long life span for something that only lives five years in the wild.”

In the remodeled Randall, the basement will open up for display for the first time. There is a whole room full of geology specimens in old wooden cigar boxes that have been awaiting display. Bones and skulls are wrapped in a Chronicle broadsheet from 1967, if that is an indication.

Stuffed animals, which are kept on a separate floor from the live ones, will also finally get their day, in the taxidermy department. There will be a redwoods exhibit and a fish tank dedicated to the Farallon Islands.

The size of the tank, and the size of the fish, will be determined by the sizes of the checks written by donors. The largest, so far, is a matching grant of $500,000.

The $8 million capital campaign is $1.1 million short, and if the gap can be closed by the end of summer, the Randall will get a cafe for the first time. This refuge for parents will be called Cafe Josephine, and Maria Southard will probably be writing a check to help with that.

So what will Jack Southard do for a year? The Randall is taking temporary quarters at the Mission Art Center, starting July 1. A hundred animals, including insects, will make that commute, and so will Jack and his mother.

“It’s going to be different,” says Jack, a team player if there ever was one, “but we’ll make it work.”